Director General Sarah Wamala

Sarah Wamala, BSc, MSc, PhD, is the Director-General of the Swedish National Institute of Public Health since 1st November 2008. Prior to this appointment she worked as the Head of Department of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at Stockholm Centre for Public Health.

Dr. Sarah Wamala, is the Director-General of the Swedish National Institute of Public Health since 1st November 2008.

Prior to this appointment she worked as the Head of Department of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at Stockholm County Council and as associate professor in community medicine at Karolinska Institute.

Dr. Sarah Wamala has a PhD in medicine with focus on public health sciences from Karolinska Institute and is trained in economics, public health and epidemiology at various universities including Makerere University (Uganda), Stockholm University (Sweden), and Karolinska Institute (Sweden), Tufts University (USA) and Cambridge School of Public Health (UK).

Dr Sarah Wamala has written extensively both scientific articles in international scientific journals and debate articles in daily news papers on wider determinants of health and relevance of preventive strategies and interventions that promote health, save lives and save money.

Dr Sarah Wamala (together with Dr. Ichiro Kawachi at Harvard School of Public Health) is among the first to edit a text book on globalization and health (by Oxford University Press, New York), including a critical analysis of the benefits and shortfalls of globalization for health. 

”Public health is as important as economics for development and should be given the priority it deserves!"